As an alum who graduated in 1979, I would nominate Robbie Moore as a great UM goalie. If you think Hunwick is tiny, just check out the vitals and (lack of) padding on Moore. Robbie was one of the first entertainers at Michigan, earning cheers from the student section when he would hop atop the goal during timeouts and just sit there, swinging his legs back and forth. His pro career appears to just be incredibly unlucky. I'm guessing he might have had a significant NHL stay if his rookie experience in the playoffs for the Flyers had gone just a bit better. The Flyers had to replace Parent, and Robbie just got on the wrong side of Pete Peeters and Pelle Lindbergh. Yost wasn't tricked out in those days and UM was a solid program (made the frozen four in 76, I believe) but not a consistently great one. But Moore was a blast.

Best, Jamie Turner

I think Hunwick should do the sit-on-the-goal thing. Probably tougher these days when the thing can come out from underneath you.

Brian,

Besides stating the obvious, could you please explain the difference between four-year scholarships and one-year renewable scholarships? I have never heard of a coach just flat out cutting a guy for performance (publicly anyway). Even Saban gives his kids "medical" hardships instead of sending them on their merry way. Also, what happens in disciplinary cases? Do coaches still have the power to kick an athlete off the team for violating rules? And what would happen in cases like Tony Posada's last year (coming in out of shape)? Thanks in advance.

Go Blue, Stephen Y

While you haven't heard about players getting flat-out cut for performance, they do in ways subtle and not. Certain transfers in search of playing time are undertaken with the understanding that not only playing time but a scholarship will be scarce in future years if the kid chooses to stick it out. St. Saban Memorial Hospital can only be pushed so far before it becomes ludicrous…

…and at some point after it becomes ludicrous the NCAA notices. Every year Saban has to shuffle some kids out the door. We never know who they are because they have no leverage and they don't want to rock the boat in case South Alabama is turned off. If those players suddenly have leverage we'll find out who they are (or more likely Saban will just continue to offer one year deals; at least then people going into their Alabama experience are explicitly warned).

As to what the functional differences are between one- and four-year scholarships, that is an implementation issue I haven't seen details about. Clearly there has to be some ability for coaches to cut players who fail out or sucker-punch a hockey player somewhere other than Michigan State. What those are have not been made clear. Given this post on the Bylaw Blog, I don't think that's a problem with publicity. It seems like no one is certain of the enforcement mechanism:

Key to the Big Ten’s oversigning limit is evaluating why scholarships are ending and judging whether schools should be able to replace that student-athlete with a new recruit. The stability and homogeneousness of the Big Ten’s membership has made this workable. Whether it remains workable in a larger conference with more fluid and diverse membership is questionable. And the idea of the NCAA running such an office sounds like a trap for the Association.

Without this evaluation, the oversigning limit is meaningless because a coach can simply clear out enough scholarships for whatever size class he wants by nonrenewing more current players before signing day.

This is the current situation. In the future, John Infante suggests multi-year scholarships would reduce the need for such an office. This would be the way things play out:

To clear roster space, a coach would have to find a permissible reason to cancel a scholarship during the period of award and complete the appeal process all prior to signing day. Adding in an exception if a coach grants permission to contact every Division I institution (an “unconditional release”) or pairing this oversigning limit with a transfer rule that granted a great deal of freedom to a student-athlete whose scholarship was cancelled would complicate matters, but would also discourage more roster turnover.

That transfer bit is a great idea—when a school voluntarily terminates a player's scholarship he should be able to transfer anywhere he wants and play immediately—but the definition of "permissible reason" is left unaddressed. Presumably academic washouts are amongst those. What level of legal trouble would be? MIPs? Traffic tickets? Minor possession beefs leading to probation?

As far as Posada goes, he left of his own volition and Michigan would likely be able to get his scholarship back. If he decided to stay and take advantage of his four-year scholarship he would have to participate in team activities, something he may not want to or be capable of doing. At that point the mutually beneficial solution would be to find a medical reason he should not participate. Like "I am very heavy."

Is that a satisfactory answer? No, not really. The NCAA has a lot of issues to hammer out. Again, virtually all of this would be solved by replacing the roster maximum with a yearly cap on new scholarship players.

Personal relationship with bowls.

Brian,

With Michigan getting back to a BCS bowl this past season, I found myself wondering about your personal stance on attending bowl games. Considering your (justified) disdain for rich old dudes in yellow blazers, I guess I always assumed that you avoided giving your hard-earned cash to such operations. I certainly could have overlooked it, but I don't recall you discussing your attendance at the Sugar Bowl or any other bowl game since mgoblog's inception. Then, in a recent UV column, you stated: "I'm probably not going to Dallas this year because I can get a generic NFL stadium experience at many bowl games."

I assume this was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but I figured the long and boring football offseason is a good time to discuss this stuff:

(1) Which bowl games (Michigan or non-Michigan) have you attended?

The only bowl I have been to is the 2007 Rose Bowl. (The one against USC that was 3-3 at halftime and then ended 32-18.)

(2) Under what circumstances, if any, would you attend a Michigan "bowl" game? National Championship game only (maybe only at the Rose Bowl)? National Semi-Final right next door at Ford Field in Detroit (assuming the system evolves/devolves that way)? Insight Bowl in Tempe vs. Oklahoma (assuming you're already stuck in the desert on an ill-fated family vacation, and tickets are $10)?

I'll be interested to hear you discuss some scenarios and your rationale. I assume you attended, or at least really wanted to attend, the 1998 Rose Bowl - but if you tell us you've attended every bowl game since the mid-'90s there might be a collective "head asplode" moment. Thanks for your work on the blog.

Nick Washington, DC

I strongly considered going to the Sugar Bowl but the timing did not work out well. The people I usually do these things with had work issues, my wife couldn't go because she is currently an adjunct at Michigan and classes started the day after. I had the option of flying down for one full day and thought that was not a good expenditure of money and time, especially because I'm expected to put out a ton of content in the vicinity of a football game. Without those annoying restrictions I probably would have taken the opportunity to hit up New Orleans.

The Rose Bowl moves the needle. I haven't gone to many in the past because I was an idiot ('98), a child (pre-'98) or being frugal (2004, 2005) just after exiting college. In the future I'll probably go to most Rose Bowls.

I can't imagine wanting to go to any other bowl. The problem is the locations. I have created a diagram to demonstrate.

(Los Angeles is debatable but the Rose Bowl is the Rose Bowl.) I'm not the kind of person who finds happiness wandering around somewhere screaming "OH MY GOD IT'S WARM." I would go to a bowl game in Denver or Santa Fe because I could pack in some skiing around it—the Frozen Four in Denver was fantastic—but there aren't any Big Ten bowls in ski destinations. Northern California is the closest place that actually has a game. Unfortunately, the Big Ten's relentless insistence on making the cities the least appealing ones possible means the bonus parts of your trip are going to Epcot Center or… uh… whatever they do in Tampa. Orson says that's do meth and strip. Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Scottsdale are the Applebees of American cities. I can't think of any reason on earth to go to Houston or Dallas. It's bad when you lose San Antonio and your bowl destinations get worse.

My ideal bowl locations are in order: Denver, San Francisco, New York, Santa Fe, [NARRATOR CONTINUES FOR HOURS], a Vietnam WAR POW prison, a Honduran prison, Guantanamo Bay, Orlando. Since available destinations will forever be non-overlapping Venn diagram circles, it's the Rose or nothing unless Michigan makes a title game or gets sucked into the Sugar Bowl again.

Am I wrong about this? Is Orlando a fun place to go? Please advise.

Retro lingo revival.

Brian,

I was reading this article about a "cyclorama" of the Battle of Gettysburg, and something caught my attention. Basically, a "cyclorama" was a giant painting (this one was four hundred feet long) displayed on the interior of a rotunda. The Gettysburg one was considered a masterpiece of the form and was hugely popular. Naturally, that success inspired copycats:

These pirated works were known as "buckeyes," a pejorative commonly applied to things of inferior quality and, in the art world, used for painters and their works aimed at the commercial market.

Surely this excellent 19th century definition could use a 21st century revival. For example, say you got a new phone that wasn't as good as your old phone. Instead of saying "It's a real piece of crap", you'd say "It's a real buckeye". Or instead of saying "my cheap sandals broke", you'd say "my buckeye sandals broke". Bing is a buckeye, as is ESPN the Magazine, examples abound. It'll take some getting used to, but I think we can bring this back.